


Consolation

by giselleslash



Series: Prompt Fics [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-01
Updated: 2012-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-08 23:12:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giselleslash/pseuds/giselleslash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fourth in a series of word/song prompts given to me by my Livejournal friends' list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consolation

Oddly enough it isn’t Guinevere or Merlin who brings him a sense of peace, but Gwaine, of all people. Arthur doesn’t know what to think about that, so he doesn’t. Everything is so terrible in his mind that he doesn’t need anything else to shoulder its way in.

Gwaine gives off the illusion of belligerence and carelessness, traits ill received in Arthur’s view of the world. To him such disregard is selfish and lazy and nothing but a disservice to those around him. Arthur’s world is the knights’ code and the honour held therein. Gwaine is facetious and it grates on Arthur’s nerves.

But Gwaine also sees the entire picture, something which Arthur sometimes fails to do; his focus so narrow and defined that it obliterates everything around it. So it’s Gwaine that pulls Arthur back from the precipice, from the despair and ruin that Morgana has left behind. He has Camelot back, but the cost is too high and he is flattened under the weight of his sorrow for those who gave too much. His subjects dead because he was lacking.

His rage is intense and scattered far and wide, no one is out of its reach and they all step aside.

Except Gwaine.

He is foolhardy, and often just a fool, but he takes Arthur aside and pushes back when those who are less of a fool turn away from him.

Gwaine’s fist meets his jaw and the pain shocks him, it is the first thing he has felt in days. Arthur’s muscles instinctively coil and he goes at Gwaine in a hot rush of blood and anger. Gwaine takes a punch, then two, but then he fights back and everything breaks apart and by the time they’re done they’re both bloodied and bruised, heaving and gasping for air, and it’s then that Gwaine first speaks.

“It’s not your fault.”

Arthur shakes his head, makes a half-hearted attempt to backhand Gwaine but he pulls back before Arthur can make contact.

“Not everything in this world is of your creation.”

“She is my -,” Arthur has to stop before he says the word, “sister. My burden.”

“Stop being so fucking pigheaded, you selfish prick. Let the rest of us mourn too, you can’t own all the sorrow.”

Arthur looks up at Gwaine then, realizing what he’s said. His days have been so blackened and heavy that he didn’t realize he had made himself the center of everyone’s cares. He has pulled everyone beneath the waves and drowned them all with him. 

“I didn’t know -.”

Gwaine doesn’t let him finish. His hand on the back of Arthur’s neck silences him, his grip is firm, deliberate, nearly painful. He tugs at Arthur’s neck, pulls them both together until their foreheads bump, then settle against each other.

“Let it go.”

The breath that rushes from Arthur’s mouth is filled with words never said and deeds never done, but the relief is sudden and pure and his lips let everything slip by.


End file.
